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Tuesday, February 04, 2014

Pattern Release: Diminishing Returns

Early last fall, I had an idea for a shawl that was simple to execute and used basic textures (stockinette and garter) to show off hand-dyed yarn. I love using hand-dyed yarn, but sometimes, even with a semisolid colorway, the color changes in the yarn partially obscure a stitch pattern, especially a complex one. The idea was to create a basic top-down triangular shawl that would allow the yarn to be the star. I acquired two skeins of Malabrigo Sock and cast on in conjunction with the Malabrigo Junkies Ravelry group's annual Stockpile event to see if I could turn an image in my head into an accurate physical representation. I'm happy to say that I could and I did.

The finished shawl, Diminishing Returns, is your basic top-down triangle shawl, but the mixture of stockinette and garter adds visual interest to the basic shape. This is a fairly large shawl, so you can really wrap up in it on a cold day or bunch it up around your neck to keep the wind out. Because I was working with two skeins of hand-dyed yarn, I alternated which skein was I working from every two rows to avoid pooling. The design also lends itself very well to being worked in two colors if you don't happen to have two skeins of the same color -- you should go see Brian's version to see what I mean.

If you've never knit a top-down triangle shawl before, this would be a great one to start with. There are very few stitches used (knit, purl, and make 1 right/left), and I've even included a photo tutorial to help you with the garter tab that starts the shawl.

Eventually, this shawl will be part of an e-book featuring four relatively simple shawls; the other three patterns will, I hope, be coming out in the next several months. The shawl is available on its own for now, though, and I hope you'll like it!